Francis O'Connor is a Research Associate at the Centre on Social Movement Studies (COSMOS), at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence, Italy, where he focuses on contentious politics and civil wars, covering subjects including anti-austerity protests, Nationalism and referendums, and armed conflicts in Colombia and Turkey. He is the co-author of books including Social Movements and Referendums from Below (2017), and Late Neoliberalism and Its Discontents in the Economic Crisis: Comparing Social Movements in the European Periphery (2016).